Bleomycin is the name which has been given to a family of antitumor antibiotics, all of which are closely related structurally and can be derived synthetically from bleomycinic acid. The bleomycins are of interest because of their clinically useful activity against, e.g., skin, lung and testicular cancer. We propose a total synthesis of bleomycin B2, MW 1424, having 19 asymmetric centers.